A jury reached a verdict Monday in the trial of a teenage girl charged with killing her father.

The girl was 12 years old when prosecutors said she shot and killed her father while he was asleep in their Katy home in April 2009.

On Monday, the jury found the girl, who is now 15, not guilty.

"When the jury walked back in, I couldn't tell. These people, take them to Vegas," said the girl's attorney, Windi Akins Pastorini. "There's a lot of fear and trepidation about what's going on in their mind. That jury had 12 poker faces. We could not tell from looking at them which direction they were going.

"Her reaction was, 'Does that mean we won?' Then she just started crying. This has been three long years for that little girl."

Prosecutors argued that the girl was mad at her father for disciplining her, but the defense said that the girl was keeping a secret.

"The physical and verbal and emotional and sexual assaults were getting more and more aggravated as time went on," Pastorini said.

According to courtroom testimony, the girl's father began abusing her when she was 6 years old.

Defense attorneys argued that she had no choice but to shoot and kill her father.

"She was clearly defending herself that morning. He had threatened her. He had come into the bathroom where she was bathing. She had tried to cover herself. For the first time in 12 years, she stood up to him and she screamed at him to get out," said Pastorini.

Prosecutors argued that the girl never asked for help. The girl didn't tell the investigating officers about the abuse, instead saying she and her father argued and struggled over the gun, according to courtroom testimony.

"If she had waited until he was awake, he would have overpowered her like he always did," said Pastorini.

The jury began deliberating in the case on Wednesday. On Thursday, they told the judge that they were deadlocked, but the judge told them to keep working toward a verdict.

Prosecutors declined KPRC Local 2's request for comment about the verdict.